At around 10 PM on Sunday the toilet cistern in our apartment decided to start overflowing. With my English hat on I decided to try and fix it. in the UK I would have removed the float and valve, turned the rubber washer around and put it back together again. When I took the cover off there was no obvious float or valve, time for a learning experience. Closer investigation showed a small open bottomed float (at the back of the picture) but raising this by hand had no effect on the flow. Time to take it all apart, helped by the local isolation valve. After chipping off a few staligtites and carefully easing some plastic pieces apart I found that there was a servo valve. The float closed a tiny hole which allowed pressure to build up on a diaphragm that closed off the main water flow. The problem was a speck of scale on the float valve stopping it from closing. I cleaned to up put it back together and luckily it worked. Off to bed The alternative would have been to wait until morning and call a plumber. If you think UK plumbers are expensive, try a Swiss one.
At around 10 PM on Sunday the toilet cistern in our apartment decided to start overflowing. With my English hat on I decided to try and fix it. in the UK I would have removed the float and valve, turned the rubber washer around and put it back together again. When I took the cover off there was no obvious float or valve, time for a learning experience. Closer investigation showed a small open bottomed float (at the back of the picture) but raising this by hand had no effect on the flow. Time to take it all apart, helped by the local isolation valve. After chipping off a few staligtites and carefully easing some plastic pieces apart I found that there was a servo valve. The float closed a tiny hole which allowed pressure to build up on a diaphragm that closed off the main water flow. The problem was a speck of scale on the float valve stopping it from closing. I cleaned to up put it back together and luckily it worked. Off to bed The alternative would have been to wait until morning and call a plumber. If you think UK plumbers are expensive, try a Swiss one.
